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ONGRESS 

J.CL Jession 



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/ Document 
I No. 263 



NATIONAL DEFENSE 



A SPEECH 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE NATIONAL SECURITY 

LEAGUE ON JANUARY 22, 1916 

AT WASHINGTON, D. C. 



BY 



HON. HENRY CABOT LODGE 

United Slates Senator from Massachusetts 




PRESENTED BY MR. WEEKS 
January 28, 1916.— Ordered to be printed 



WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE" 

1916 






D. Of D. 
FEB 15 1916 






ADDRESS OF SENATOR HENRY CABOT LODGE. 



Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I am deeply interested in the 
purpose for which this National Security League has been formed. 
I believe your meeting here can not fail to do good in molding and 
making public opinion. But I think you will agree with me that 
the most important thing is that this league should so work and 
should use its power in such a Avay as to bring- practical results in 
the shape of legislation for national defense. [Applause.] Even 
were I master of eloquence, I should not attempt it to-night. I 
merely wish to offer to you a few practical suggestions drawn from 
some years of observation in Washington. 

There are two kinds of questions which it is extremely difficult to 
argue. One is where the question is new, doubtful, intricate, and com- 
plicated. The other is when a question is so simple that it is diffi- 
cult to understand how there can be any difference of opinion in 
regard to it. [Laughter.] The subject of national defense belongs, 
to my mind, in the latter class. [Applause.] The proposition, as 
I should put it, is something like this : Every nation should have 
sufficient military and naval defense to maintain its own peace and 
security. This Nation has not such defense. Therefore it is the 
duty of this Nation to look to it that such provision is made. It 
appears to me that this little syllogism is so simple and so obvious 
that almost anyone with the sight of an average mole could see it. 
And yet I know there is a great deal of opposition, in a certain way, 
to the proposition. 

I quite agree that it is not a party question. I should be sorry 
to think that national defense could be a party question. But I will 
say this that if those gentlemen, of either party or of both parties, 
who are now standing in the way of national defense do not look 
to themselves a party will arise somewhere which will carry national 
defense to completion. [Applause and cheers.] I am not going to 
enter into details. I shall not attempt to argue that little syllogism 
which I just ventured on as it might be argued. I could easily keep 
you here well over Sunday if I should enter upon details relating to 
either branch of the service. All I desire now is to call your attention 
to certain facts vividly illustrating what the present condition is and 
just where you want to go to work. The first thing is to know the 
facts. There is fortunately no difficulty in knowing the facts about 
the Army. We have a Secretary of War to whom as an American I 
feel under great obligations, because he has told us the facts. [Ap- 
plause.] He has laid his cards on the table. I do not know whether 
the scheme that he proposes, and which is known as his plan, is the 
ideally perfect plan to his mind — I very much doubt it — or whether, 
like other men charged with great responsibility, he is laboring for 
the best that he can hope to get. [Applause.] But, above all things, 



4 NATIONAL DEFENSE. 

he is telling lis all about the War Department. And what is it that 
we know, when all is told? That we have no Arn\y sufficient to de- 
fend the United kStates. We can ncjt build coast defenses to protect 
10,000 or Ti.OOO miles of coast ; that is an absurdity. We can protect, 
we have partially protected, perhaps, some few great ports. But 
the defense of the United States by land must lie in a large mobile 
force. We have no such force. I for one believe that the recommen- 
dation of Gen. Leonard Wood and of the AVar College experts, that 
we should have a Regular Army to start with of 210,000 men, is right; 
that that is the least number. [Applause.] 

I believe that behind that Regular Army there should be a large 
reserve mobile force. Mr. Putnam has told you, what we all know, 
I think, that in one foreign country, at least, plans have been made 
with a view to landing in this country, and that in 40 days they could 
land an army of 300,000 men. thoroughly equipped. Now, the only 
way to meet such a force is to have a mobile army to meet them 
wherever they land. You can not, I repeat, have fortifications every- 
wdiere. You must have your mobile force. Last year our mobile 
force, all Regulars, was 24,000 men. You ought to have an army out- 
numbering by at least two to one any hostile force that can be landed. 
How, as a preliminary, are you going to find out where the enemy 
is, and where they are going to land? We have no aeroplanes. How 
are you going to move your men and supplies once you leave the 
railroads? You have not even got motor trucks in your Army. 
We are deficient in field artillery. We have no large reserves of 
ammunition upon which success in war now depends. Above all, I 
repeat, you have not got the men. You ought to have at least a 
million men Avho can at any moment be called to the colors as a re- 
serve. [Api)lause.] Whether it can best be done by the federaliza- 
tion of the militia — a matter of some constitutional difficulty — or 
whether, as I believe it must be eventually done, by a national force, 
it ought to be, it must be, done. Every citizen in a democracy ought 
to have the same rights and the same duties. [A]5plause.] We all 
ought to bear the burdens equally, the burdens of taxation and of 
military service. The universal liability to military service does 
not, however, necessarily mean that we must carry out the Swiss 
system to the fullest extent, and have an army of twelve or fifteen 
millions, but with that universal liability we must have and we can 
get the million men we w;ant. 

We have not got them now. We have practically no military de- 
fense on land. It is an ugly thing to say, but we could be conquered 
to-morrow by any nation able to land on our coast 300,000 to 
400,000 men thoroughly equipped in the best modern way. We are 
as brave a people as live, as the mayor of New York so justly said, 
but bravery unarmed means useless sacrifice of the best men. We 
are ready to fight, but an unarmed people can not fight a fully armed 
and equipped body of 400,000 men. And how are the bravest people 
in the world to spring to arms when they have no arms to spring to? 
[Applause and laughter.] That is why I say that we are defenseless 
by land, and defense we must have, and Ave must have it at once. 

I now come to the Navy. Let me repeat that I speak in no party 
sense, and that I do not regard this as a party question; but I have 
been in Congress more years than I am eager to confess, and I think 



NATIONAL DEFENSE. 5 

that I know Congress fairly well, and w^here the blame rests for our 
riOt being defended as we ought to be at this moment. Administra- 
tions come and go. With scarcely an exception let me say that every 
Secretary of War and every Secretary of the Navy whom I have 
known has tried — some more vigorously, some more successfully, 
than others, of course, but the^^ have all tried — to build up the forces 
intrusted to his charge. The responsibility for not being defended 
to-day as we ought to be lies at the door of Congress. [Applause.] 
I am ready to take my blame with the rest, but I know where the 
blame lies. It is no new thing. When Washington was on the eve 
of final victory, just before the siege of Yorktown, perhaps you do 
not recall what Congress were proposing to do? They were pro- 
posing at that moment to reduce the Army. Some things change 
and others do not. [Laughter and applause.] 

I served some years ago on the Naval Committee of the House of 
Representatives. I am at this moment a member of the Senate Com- 
mittee on Naval Affairs, and ever since I have been in Washington 
I have tried to inform myself in regard to the Navy. I do not know 
as much about it as my friend Mr. Padgett, chairman of the House 
Naval Committee, who, I think, has as thorough a knowledge of 
naval affairs as any man in public life — more thorough, indeed. 
[Applause.] I have had the honor to serve with him on conference 
committees, and I know the extent of his knowledge. Yet even in his 
]:)resence I venture to say that I know something about the Navy, 
but I am far from knowing it all, and the country knows very little. 
We see a display of naval ships in the Hudson River, and the people 
go home with a comfortable feeling that they have got a great and 
splendid Navy, becauj-e they do not at all understand what a really 
complete and efficient navy is. During the Spanish War there was a 
New England port, which shall be nameless, one of many where they 
felt that" they were in danger of attack from the Spanish cruisers. 
It was not exceptional, because that feeling existed in all Atlantic 
ports, south as well as north, and in common with many other ports 
it wanted protection. I labored to get them protection. I finally 
secured for this particular port an old monitor of the Civil War. 
with one large smoothbore gun. It was towed down to that port 
with some difficulty and anchored in the harbor, and they were 
perfectly satisfied. " [Laughter.] The moral is that a navy may have 
some verv fine ships and yet be wholly inadequate as a fighting force, 
and it is not to be expected that the people will understand the real 
condition of the Navy unless it is honestly explained to them. 

The difficulty of obtaining accurate knowledge is shown by the fact 
that those who are most immediately charged with the care of the 
Navy are guilty of mistakes. The President said in his message : 

If this fiiU i)i-(>srain should he carried out. we sliould linve huilt or l)uildiii;,' 
in 1921, aceordins to the estimates of survival and standards of elassitimtion — 

I call your attention to that language — 

followed In- the General Board of the department, an effective Navy consisting 
of 27 battleships of the first line, 6 battle cruisers, and 25 battleships of the 
second line. 

The Secretary of the Navy in his annual report says: 

If this program is carried out, accepting the General P.oard estimates of 
survival for present vessels — 



6 ISTATIONAL DEFENSE. 

That is 20 years; some say 15. but we will take it at 20 as the life 
limit of a modern battleship — 

the Navy will be composed of the following vessels, built or building, in 1921 : 
Battleships, first line, 27 ; battle cruisers, 6 ; battleships, second line, 25. 

There can be no mistake about the battle cruisers, because we have 
none, and those six are in the President's program, and there is no 
item of his pi-ogram Avhich is better than that. Battleships of the 
first line, 27 — that includes IT ships now built or building, and 10 
according to the program; but the 25 battleships of the second line 
puzzled me. I wrote to the Secretary of the Navy and asked him if 
he would give me the names of the battleships of the second line. 
He replied, very kindly, that I could find them in the report of the 
General Board annexed to his report. I wrote back to him that I 
had already read that appendix, but that the report of the General 
Board did not seem to me to agree with his statement, and that was 
why I asked for the names of the ships. I have had no answer to 
this last letter. [Laughter.] 

But here is what the General Board said, to which the Secretary 
referred me : 

Dreadnaughts of the first line. 17. 

Then there are the 10 added under the pr(jgram, making a total of 
27; correct. 

Dreadnauglits of the second line — 

1 am reading from the report of the General Board now — 

Dreadnaughts of the second line, 13. 
Superannuated dreadnaughts of the third line — 

Ships that will then be over 20 j^ears old, each one — 

nine. 
Harbor-defense battleships. .3 — 

The Indiana, the Massachusetts, and the Oregon^ authorized in 
1890, commissioned in 1895. 

The 25 of the second line as given by the President and the Sec- 
letary of the Navy were made up of 13 put in that line by the 
General Board, of 9 excluded from that line by the General Board 
because they were not in accordance with their estimates of survival, 
and of 3 now more than 20 years old, which the General Board rank 
as only fi.t for harbor defense. 

I am merely calling attention, by giving you these varying state- 
ments, to some of the difficulties in the way of getting at facts. 

Now, take the submarines. I could talk about the submarines all 
night. [Laughter.] One himdred and fifty-seven in 1921 was the 
number given us by the President and the Secretary. Dear old boats 
some of them will be then. That 157 includes every submarine thnt 
has been built from the beginning starting in 1902. Some of them 
are absolutely useless now, and everybody knows it. There is not 
a seagoing submarine among those now existing. I believe F-4^ 
which sank in the harbor of Honolulu, is no longer carried on the 
list. [Laughter.] But it was carried on the list as late as last 
August. 

Then there is the shortage of men. The Secretary has sent in the 
report of Admiral Fletcher, made on the 15th of August last, and 



NATIONAL DEFENSE. 7 

in that report he describes the shortage of men. At the June in- 
spection one division was short 1,350 men. Mine layers were 25 
per cent short in their complement. The department has reduced 
the complement of destroyers by 25 per cent. It is reported that at 
the battle- efficienc}^ inspection of the Utah a chief petty officer was 
in charge of one turret and an ensign of 1914 in charge of another. 
The Florida was short 29 officers, the Utah 28, the Michigan 21, and 
the South Carolina 16. A pay clerk and a yeoman were in charge 
of the plotting room, doing the work which should have been done 
by commissioned officers. 

Admiral Fletcher, the commander in chief, says that such reports 
are of frequent occurrence, and in his own conclusions points out 
specifically that the fleet needs more officers and more men; that 
whatever be the number of men available for complements of the 
ships in the active fleet should be kept full, and that if ships can not 
be kept fully in commission with full complement thej' should be 
put in reserve. 

He says, also, in this same report, that we need mine-laying and 
mine-sweeping vessels. He gives a comparison between the Delaware 
and the Bellerophon and the Helgoland^ which I need not go into, 
as to the number of officers. He refers to the unsatisfactor}^ con- 
dition of the submarines, their limitations of mobility, the lack of 
air craft, the lack of any radio direction finder, the lack of mine- 
laying and mine-sweeping vessels. 

I need not go on. The report is worthy your consideration if 
you want to get at the facts and learn how absolutely inadequate and 
how far from high efficiency our Navy is. We have no scouts. We 
have no fast battle cruisers. The Blucher, which was sunk in the 
North Sea. was sunk because she was the slowest of the German 
ships. She was faster than any ship in our Navy ! We need battle 
cruisers; we need scouts; we need aeroplanes, and we need speed 
in supplying these deficiencies. [Great applause.] 

The Secretary said the other day before the House committee, 
if he was correctly reported, that it took three years to build a 
battleship. Let me ask your attention — these are dry facts — to the 
history of the two last superdreadnaughts authorized, battleships 
Nos. 43 and 44^ authorized on March 3. 1915. Congress did its 
duty, let me say. as to those two battleships. The Secretary of the 
Navy decided to build these ships at New York and Mare Island. 
It is now nearly a year since the authorization. The material for 
No. Jf3, to be built at the New York Yard, has been ordered, I be- 
lieve, and is in process of being assembled. [Laughter.] The 
California is on the ways at the New York Navy Yard, however, 
imd is not expected to be off the ways before September or October. 
I take the Secretary's own statement. Therefore No. 43. authorized 
March 3, 1915. can not have her keel laid before that time — 18 
months after her authorization ! 

It may be possible that we can not build a battleship in two years, 
as England and Germany do; but we can build it in three years, 
and we ought to be able to get rid of those 18 months which make 
it four and a half years for an American battleship. 

No. H is to be built at Mare Island. There are ways there, but 
they are not large enough to take a superdreadnaught, and must 



8 NATIONAL DEFENSE. 

be extended. There is not money enough to do it. Congress must 
either appropriate money especially for that purpose or authorize 
the Secretary to use some of the money appropriated for the ships. 
I do not think this authority has yet been given. It may have 
passed the House. 

Representative Padgett. No, sir; it is pending in the House. It 
has been reported by the committee. 

Senator Lodge. It is pending in the House, then. The ship now 
on the ways, which it will be necessary to have off the ways before 
the superdreadnaught can be begun, will probably be launched in 
September, 1916. If the money is authorized for the extension of 
the ways — and I hope and believe it will be — that can be accom- 
plished before the launching of the ship now on the ways; but if 
the money is not obtained there will be still further delay. 

It is said on good authority that England and Germany have 
been building seagoing submarines of 800 or 1,000 tons, capable of 
going around the north of England or into the Mediterranean, at the 
rate of one a month. We then hear flourishing statements about 
our great seagoing submarines. Yes; three have been authorized, 
but we have not got them. I am glad they are authorized, but I 
want them in the water, where they can be used, and not simply float- 
ing harmlessly in acts of Congress. 

The ScMeii was the first large submarine authorized. It was au- 
thorized on the 30th of June, 1914. The contract was let the follow- 
ing March— March of 1915. In the bulletin of January 10, 1916, it 
appears that nothing has been done upon her 3^et. How long do 
you thing is the contract time for the Schley^ the first of our sea- 
going submarines? I was astonished to find out. Thirty-six 
months — three years ! She is not contracted to be delivei-ed until 
March, 1918 ; and if we want submarines, we want them now ! 
[Applause.] As for the two authorized last year, nearly a year 
ago — 60 and 61 — nothing has been done about them at all. These 
are all mere illustrations. But they are the facts. Do not forget 
that the worst thing that can befall us is to be deceived by others or 
deceive ourselves as to our Xavy. 

The House Naval Committee is hard at work preparing its bill, 
having the valuable hearings which it is necessary to have, and 
working as hard and intelligently on the bill as it is possible, I know. 
The House Military Committee, unless I am misinformed, is con- 
sidering a bill which appropriates for exactly the same Army that 
we have now. The Senate Military Committee is holding hearings 
and is doing excellent work. It has had before it Gen. Wood, 
Gen. Carter, and other officers of the Army, who are telling the 
committee and telling the country the exact truth and what the 
country needs. [Applause.] That committee is preparing good 
work. The Senate Naval Committee is engaged in the great and 
burning question of building an armor plant. [Laughter.] 

Now, I recognize that perhaps it may be necessary by and by to 
have an armor plant. I am very doubtful about it at any time, but 
I am certain that we do not want to put ten millions into an armor 
plant now. What we want now is ships and men and submarines 
and aeroplanes. [Great applause.] I Icnow there is a great argu- 
ment behind the armor plant. I know that if the armor plant is 



NATIONAL DEFENSE. 9 

not built it is possible — perhaps probable, but certainly possible — 
that some great industrial plant in ])rivate hands may make some 
money out of the manufacture of armor. Nevertheless, it seems to 
me that it is more important to keep the enemy from our shores than 
to devote our attention to preventing x\mericans from making money. 
[Applau!-e.] I know well the immense time and thought which has 
been given to that question of preventing Americans from making 
money [laughter], and I do not underrate its importance; but I think 
that at this moment what we want to do is to give the Navy the 
things of which it is in such sore need. The Xavy is the first line of 
defense. [Great applause.] While we control the seas, the United 
States is safe. We have two great coasts to defend. I do not quite 
agree with my friend Mr. Putnam about Chicago's inditference to 
New York and Boston. As an American, the knowledge that San 
Francisco or New Orleans or Chicago is in danger from an enemy or 
damaged by a foe comes just as near home to me as if Boston were 
attacked. [Great applause.] I was born in Boston. I have lived 
there. I love it. But there is something I love more, and that is 
the whole great country; and any enemy who touches any part of 
that country touches me. [Great applause.] 

Now. a word as to the sources of the opposition which you will have 
to meet, which you will have to deal with, representing as you do 
the people, the voters of this country. It is of various sorts in Con- 
gress. There are some Avho think that the first thing to be done is 
to put the Government into business in every direction — into muni- 
tions, into armor, into everything — resting, as I say, on the great 
pi'inciple that if they do not some private American citizen may 
make money. Then there are those who want to spend the people's 
money elsewhere, to scatter it through the country in the name of 
good roads, to improve rivers and harbors, and to build public 
buildings. You will see the newspapers refer to it in their graceful 
A\ ay [laughter] as the '' pork barrel '' ; and you would suppose, from 
^Ahat you read in the newspapers, that all this was due to the natural 
depra^■ity of Congressmen and Senators — that they wanted to have 
j'ublic buildings and river and harbor appropriations for unnavi- 
gable streams and impossible harbors, because they themselves were 
naturally bad and rejoiced in evil for its own sake. I assure you that 
is a very great mistake. The amount of i^leasure — even among those 
Congressmen and Senators Avho are fond of art — the amount of arch- 
itectural pleasure that they derive from a post office in a country town 
[laughter] is not enough to govern their votes. They want those 
things for the very simj^le and human reason — I know ; I have been 
one of them for a lofig time — that they think their constituents want 
them, and they think procuring them means votes. And just as long 
as Congressmen and Senators, or any considerable number of them, 
think there are more votes in river and harbor appropriations and 
public buildings ap})ropriations than there are in appropriations for 
the national defense, they will continue to give the preference to the 
former. [Applause.] 

That seems a harsh thing to say. The truth is not infrequently 
both harsh and unpleasant. I know there are many men in l)otli 
Houses who will vote for great appropriations for national defense 
without a thought as to whether it is going to benefit them personally 



10 NATIONAL DEFENSE. 

or not. [Applause.] I dare say there are many men in both Houses 
v. ho would vote for appropriations for rivers and harbors and public 
buildings without a thought as to whether it would benefit them or 
not, although I must confess that that proposition is perhaps not 
quite so certain as the other. [Laughter.] But if you Avould have 
Congress take up national defense, both for the Army and for the 
Navy, as you think it ought to be taken up, you will let them under- 
stand that there is a great body of voters in this country, north, south, 
east, and west, who are determined that their country shall be 
defended ! 

I have no doubt that the great mass of the American people wish 
their country to be put in a state of proper defense. You all believe 
so. Bring this fact home, then, to those who represent them. Make 
the Senators and Congressmen understand it. Begin at the primary 
and go with them to the polls in support if you can, in opposition if 
you must, and you will be surprised at the rapidity of the educa- 
tional process, and you will get plenty of support at the Capitol. 
[Applause.] But you must come down to that practical side, as every 
great question has to come to it finally. You must demonstrate to 
the Kepresentative or the Senator that the people who send him here 
want this thing done; and when the American people make it clear 
to the House and Senate that they are in earnest about natio;ial de- 
fense you will have it, and you are not likely to get it much sooner 
in a proper and sufficient way. [Applause.] 

I have taken much more time than I intended, and I only desire to 
say one Avord in conclusion. No one can think that provision for na- 
tional defense is more essential, more vital, than I do. But there is 
a side to it that goes even deeper. It has been alluded to by the 
mayor of New York, and I can do little more than repeat his words ; 
but they are words which can not be too often repeated. In this ques- 
tion of national defense lies a test of democracy, whether it is worthy 
to live, whether it has the foresight, the self-control, the spirit 
of unity which will lead it to take these precautions which it must 
take if it is to survive at all in a world so uncertain and so perilous 
as this. 

We covet no one's territory. We seek no adventures. We have 
an immense domain of our own, still to be developed. We desire, if 
we can, to distribute the riches of our heritage so that all shall bene- 
fit and not merely a few. We would fain, if Ave could, turn our at- 
tention to the needs of the great classes of our OAvn people to Avhom 
life is hard. We Avould like to do something to help old age. We 
would like to improve in every way that we can the condition of our 
own people. What is necessary for us in order to achieve that which 
we desire? Peace and security. They speak of the Monroe doctrine 
as a foreign policy. It is not a foreign policy ; it is a mere laAv of 
self-preservation. We Avish to be at peace and we wish to be secure. 

NoAv. these being our desires, have Ave made our acts and our 
policies correspond Avith them? You wish to haA^e peace and se- 
curity. HaA^e you done Avhat is necessary to make sure that you and 
those Avho come after you will have peace and security? You cer- 
tainly have not done it yet. You lie open to the Avorld, rich, tempt- 
ing, an easy prey to the armed. There are those who say, " Ex- 
hausted Europe Avill never attack us." That is the argument of the 



NATIONAL DEFENSE. H 

" didn't-know-it-was-loaded " gentlemen who add, so largely to the bills 
of mortality. Not attack us ! There is no nation on earth so danger- 
ous as a nation fully armed and bankrupt at home. [Applause.] 
The only time in our history when we were fully ]:)repared was at the 
close of the Civil War. We had a great veteran Army. We had the 
largest fleet in existence. We had a debt of $3,000,000,000, which 
looked enormous then. Our currency seemed to be hopelessly de- 
preciated. Financially speaking, we were bankrupt. Yet there 
never was a moment in the history of the United States when she 
was so dangerous to her neighbors as in 1865. 

You can always get money, apparently, in this w^orld for powder and 
shot. War ended in Europe, a nation there armed to the teeth, crip- 
pled financially, with large claims growingout of Mexico : shall I go oil ? 
Do vou think that presents a safe condition? Such a condition is 
highly dangerous. Xo nation is safe while the world is as it is; and 
our dut_y is to make sure of our peace, our security, our freedom. 
Is the ideal of democracy merely to accumulate money, to live in 
comfort, to amuse ourselves from clay to day ? Is that the tru^ ideal of 
democracy? Not to my mind. I believe that the ideal of democracy 
is written in the American Revolution and in the Civil War; the 
great ideal which Abraham Lincoln typified, that life, that wealth, 
that everything was as nothing compared to liberty and freedom; 
and that this Nation should be free and remain free; that we should 
be able to continue the democracy which we' have set up. And now^ 
wdth other democracies fighting for their lives, are Ave to remain still 
and do nothing to preserve our own ? 

In the long- vistii of tlie yenrs to roll. 

Let me not see my country's honor fade; 
Oh ! let me see our land retain its soul ! 

Her pride in Freedom, and not Freedom's shade. 

[Great applause.] 

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